Open source company sells proprietary software [Corrected]

"VA Software describes itself on its Web site as sitting 'at the center of the open source technology revolution.' Seems to make sense. After all, the company operates SourceForge.net, a site where developers collaborate on open source projects. It also runs Web sites, like Slashdot and NewsForge, where the anti-Microsoft crowd rails against the evils of proprietary, closed source software," reports Forbes. But as the article points out: "VA Software's main product, SourceForge Enterprise Edition, is as closed-source and non-free as anything made by big, bad Microsoft."

Officials at VA Software say they can't release SourceForge Enterprise Edition as an open source program, because, if they did, copycats could create knockoffs of the program, and that would hurt sales. "Our own code could be used to compete against us," says Colin Bodell, chief technology officer at VA Software.

VA Software used to be called VA Linux, and sold Linux hardware, until it discovered that wasn't a very profitable business.

Responding to comments from Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, Bodell says: "He is welcome to his beliefs. But to me it is not a moral issue. To me it is a matter of commerce. If people are performing work, what is the model for compensation?"